


When Life Hands You a Gelmondirink

by Ias



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Barduil Secret Santa, Crack, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Humor, M/M, Mutual Pining, Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 02:06:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5479304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after killing Smaug, King Bard discovers he has developed a little problem. </p><p>Featuring mysterious disappearances, poor coping mechanisms, and unsolicited gifts of Dwarven sex toys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Life Hands You a Gelmondirink

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LostintheFandom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostintheFandom/gifts).



> As always my eternal gratitude to [Iza](http://piyo-13.tumblr.com) both for betaing and the title.

Pacing was, Bard reflected, an excellent pastime. It kept him active. It relieved restless energy. It helped break in those fancy new boots his new position as King had required of him. And most importantly, it gave him the perfect rhythm to agonize over every possible kingly decision that could and would come to mind. Step, step, taxes. Step, step, the constant threat of orc raids. Step, step, was abdicating the throne really all that bad, if he left a politely apologetic note in his absence?

Bard made it to one end of the shallow groove he was wearing into the flagstones and turned back around. As a father, and then as a father alone, he was accustomed to making tough decisions. But as it turned out, knowing how to change a toddler’s diaper after an off batch of pickled fish didn’t much prepare one for ruling his people.

 _His people_. A strange phrase. They didn’t belong to him—quite the opposite, in fact. He was theirs, through and through, bound to their sorrows and their successes until they were one and the same, unable to go anywhere or do anything without carrying the weight of all who depended on him on his back. Funny that he could have mistaken a shackle for a crown.  

By the time he’d reached the opposite end of his pacing route, his hands were clammy and shaking as hard as cold jelly left out in an earthquake. He stopped, turned to brace them on the table and wrestled with a long, slow breath. Under his hands, the papers he had yet to attend to crinkled plaintively. He resisted the urge to ball them up. He’d tried that one on week two. As it turns out, the clerks made lots of copies.

He needed air. He needed what air promised: freedom, and a different route to tread than the one he’d already trodden into the floor. Blackness closed in around his vision, a vice of panic, and he found himself stumbling out of his office and towards his bedchambers, to the comfortable lie of privacy they promised. He would lie down. He would rest. The floor of his study would likely appreciate it more than he would. 

And in the morning, the rhythm would start up again from the moment his feet touched the floor.

Step, step—

He made it to the bed with little memory of how he did so. As he collapsed upon it, a strange and welcome heaviness descending on his limbs, his last sight was of the door to the balcony at the other end of his chamber standing open, the curtains toying with the moonlight between them like string in the paws of an easily distractible cat.

As always, it was only when unconsciousness swooped over him like an owl and pinned him down did he know that the dreams would come.

 

-

 

The closest Bard could come to describing it was a memory. He’d been a child, playing with the other children of Laketown in the short weeks of their Northern summer. It had been uncommonly warm that year, and in the shallows of the Lake they’d stripped down to their smallclothes and braved the water. It was bitterly, bitingly cold at first, but then it wasn’t—before long, you hardly remembered it was there at all. There was only the sensation of being suspended, hanging on nothing, like falling without motion or fear.

And then Bard had drifted out over deeper, colder water, and gone scrambling back to shore, because being suspended in nothing was not a sensation that humans were generally equipped to handle—other than falling towards the nearest gravitational body and rapidly spreading over it.  

Now he knew what real falling felt like. Falling, falling forever into the sky or away from it, touching clouds in a burst of water, water that fell like stars onto the tiny figures below. Below did not matter anymore. It was small, insignificant, unable to touch him. What mattered was only the wind, the air, the moon, the sense that he could go anywhere, everywhere.

And he did.

Which, as it turned out, was a real bloody inconvenience to everyone else.

 

-

 

_To The King of the Woodland Realm,_

_I can’t help but wonder why I send you this letter, if not to add to your collection. As you already know, Bard, King of Dale, your friend and my father, has once again stolen away on a mysterious journey in the middle of the night, telling no one of where he goes. Fortunately, I know you have him. I must ask you once again, and I hope it will be the last time, to stop harboring him this way. These ‘emergency’ trips to your realm are irresponsible. As much as my father might enjoy your company and the respite it undoubtedly provides him, most people are more comfortable with a King that remains firmly in the same place as where they left him in the evening._

_Do not show him this letter. He will likely scold me._

_—Lady Sigrid of Dale_

-

 

_To Lady Sigrid of Dale,_

_I assure you no such collection of letters exists. All of your correspondences are dutifully read, noted, and then lovingly composted. I say this with the utmost affection and respect for your father’s wellbeing: your father’s sudden leap of absence was quite necessary. He will be returned to you in a manner of days, after our emergency discussions over state matters are completed in all due haste. Rest assured that whenever I borrow your father I am sure to return him in better condition than I found him._

_Best Wishes,_

_Thranduil_

-

 

Thranduil sat back in his chair and set his pen neatly beside the completed letter. He had responded to Sigrid’s inquiry the moment it arrived by raven from Dale; it would be returned within the hour. Such a quick turn-around was important in maintaining the illusion that Bard was, in fact, here.

He stood up, folding the letter neatly and calling in an aide to have it sent back on its way. Less than an hour later he left through a side gate in his realm wearing simple traveling clothes and riding a horse, evading the notice of all but the guards who knew better than to question his comings and goings. He had left a note for Tauriel to find if his expedition took too long. He didn’t like to rush things.  

He had not been riding for long when a thrush alighted on his shoulder, its heartbeat fluttering along with its wings in Thranduil’s ear. Its voice was clear and sweet in the language it spoke, and its words familiar enough. Thranduil’s lips twisted ruefully, but still he nodded his head. The thrush took off, flitting off down the path before resting on a tree within sight. With a touch of his hand and a quite word, Thranduil urged his mount into a trot. He followed the fluttering of wings and the bird’s soft clear song, leading him  where he needed to go.

 

-

 

Waking up was always the hard part. The sense of weight, dead weight, holding him down and filling him up and preventing him from lifting off the ground. He was also cold, and tired, two things that for one night his body had lost the vocabulary for overnight. He had been flying, and now he was grounded. There was a part of him that even now rejected that idea, that urged him to throw open his arms and fall into the void. But he would hate to steal the joy of killing him from the stress-related aneurysm he could feel coming every time he looked at a stack of papers he had to sign, so he resisted that urge.  

As he gingerly opened his eyes, his problems quickly became compounded; for one, he was outside. This would have been no problem at all if not for the fact that he was also as naked as the day he was born, and considerably more self-conscious of that fact. The sky overhead beamed down at him like a brilliant blue laugh, not a cloud to be seen. Bard covered himself as best he could before addressing the third and arguably worst problem: he appeared to be set on top of a mountain.

Bard stared over one end of the cliff. Sheer drop. He walked five paces to the other side. Slightly sheerer drop, with a nice collection of sharp rocks at the bottom. On the final side rose a wall of the straightest and smoothest rock Bard had ever seen. It might as well have been polished by the dwarves of Erebor for some unknown and infuriating purpose, for all the grip he could get on it. And yet, something certainly had managed: the claw marks dug deep into the rock were evidence enough of that. Bard stared at them with resentment.

At long last Bard sank down against it, staring out at the beautiful view of the valley and the lake and the distant, pale gimmer of Dale among the hills. It was stunning. Bard nudged a rock off the edge of the cliff and waited a very, very long time for the distant _ping_ of it hitting the ground.

“Well,” he said, nodding to himself decisively. “Bollocks.”

 

-

 

By the time Thranduil found him it was nearly midday. His horse nimbly made the climb up the hidden paths the thrush guided him to, walking along drops that plunged into a merciless end almost at the mountain’s root, each little skitter of pebbles dislodged by his mount’s hooves enjoying a long, breathless silence before they cheerfully bounced into non-existence far below.

The thrush stopped him at a the edge of a sheer drop. Thranduil dismounted, peered below: a pair of familiar brown eyes looked back up at him. Bard smiled with a little embarrassment, shifting in place to hide his nakedness more securely. Thranduil was careful not to look at him, just as he was careful not to look at the deep ruts carved into the stone, as if something had gouged it with fingers of steel. Instead, he stuck to the practicalities: the man’s skin was flushed with a faint sunburn, his hair tossed by the wind—other than looking thoroughly debauched by Mother Nature, no injuries. That was lucky. It meant they could proceed as usual.

Thranduil raised an eyebrow. “Again?”

Bard shrugged. “Again.”

Thranduil threw him a rope.

 

-

 

It would have been much quicker for Bard to simply return to Dale, but Thranduil did not suggest it and for that Bard was grateful. He could tell himself that it would be odd, more than odd, for him to show up at his gates less than a day after leaving them, dressed in the Elven clothing Thranduil had the forethought to bring along. It was as good an excuse as any. The fact was, he didn’t want to go back. Not yet—and on a weaker yet slightly more significant level, not ever.

They rode together at times, and at others one of them would walk beside the horse while the other stayed in the saddle. Being under the sun for a good part of the day had cooked Bard’s brains inside of his skull, and it seemed that neither walking nor riding could make him feel better. It was a comfort, at least, to sit behind Thranduil on the horse’s back and let his head rest on the Elf’s shoulder as the dizziness overtook him, apologizing at first and then simply remaining silent, feeling the movement of the horse and the warmth of the body in front of him. Of course, being this close to Thranduil presented its own set of problems, but Bard was going to take his problems one step on the worn flagstones at a time.

“So,” Thranduil said, and Bard felt the reverberations of that word move into his skull. “What’s our excuse this time?”

Bard sighed into Thranduil’s cloak before forcing himself to sit up into a more regal position. “…A sudden need to inspect Mirkwood’s fruit and nut reserves?”

“Perhaps there was a water contamination issue which caused me to demand your immediate presence.”

“An unexpected outbreak of tree bark rot.”

“Spider mating season.”

Bard stared at the back of Thranduil’s head in abject horror. “God, is that a real thing?”

Thranduil shrugged. “Yes. It doesn’t particularly make it a better excuse, however.”

“We used up all the good ones in the first year.”

Thranduil shot a glance over his shoulder, a sudden sharpness in his eyes. “People are going to think we’re having an affair.”

Bard glanced at him sharply out of the corner of his eye. His laugh was an octave higher than one might have expected. “An affair? How ridiculous. That would be—yes.” Bard cleared his throat with the enthusiasm of someone trying to cough up a chicken bone.

After an appropriate pause, Thranduil soldiered ahead towards a topic less laden with pitfalls. “And have you determined what triggered your… Little Problem this time?”

Bard sighed. “We really should have picked a better euphemism. One that sounds less like an over-excitable bladder.”

“Very well,” Thranduil said sagely. “Have you determined what triggers you turning into a dragon?”

Bard made a face. “That doesn’t sound much better.” He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking. “Last night it was worrying about trade debates with Erebor. The time before it was a potential  shortage of building materials before Dale was ready for the winter. Next time, who knows? There’s plenty of incoming catastrophes to choose from.”

“It’s a defense mechanism, then,” Thranduil observed. “Fight or flight, as it were.”

“The latter, almost always,” Bard muttered. “I was born to be a fighter just as much as I was born to be a king. Which is to say, not at all.”

“You’re of Girion’s bloodline.”

“The moment blood gives me any advice on negotiating tax law, I might just thank him for it.”

Neither spoke much for the rest of the ride. They both had their own demons to wrestle with. When they dismounted before one of the more discreet entrances to Thranduil’s kingdom, Thranduil paused him with a light hand on his arm.

“You can stay here for as long as you wish,” he said, his words oddly careful to Bard’s ears. “However long it takes for you to recover your strength.”

 _However long it takes me to stop panicking over the infinite nuances of grain imports, you mean_. Bard didn’t say it. He was too tired for anything but a weary nod of his head. Thranduil left him there—he knew the way to the chambers that had slowly become his own. It was small comfort that he was too exhausted and sickened to feel the constant rabbit-heart of anxiety that beat underneath his own, never-ceasing. The greatest comfort that he took was that his underground chamber had no windows.

 

-

 

The shadow rose up from the north, slicing through the clouds like the blade of a black dagger, high enough to be mistaken for a bird if not for Elven sight. The lookouts in the Woodland Realm knew better than to raise the alarm. They took their report to King Thranduil directly, rousing him from sleep just as he had asked them to.

There was no need to wait for a feathered guide this time. A dragon landing in the heart of his forest was the sort of thing he took note of.

Thranduil sighed. He wished Bard could have waited until he had finished his cup of wine.

He could still remember the first time Bard had come to him, arriving alone on horseback outside of MIrkwood’s gates and looking as if an army of orcs were hard on his heels. He had demanded a private audience with Thranduil—demanded, because the alternative was to beg. Thranduil had seen that in the man’s eyes. For all his attempts to keep his distance, he still knew Bard better than he had thought to allow himself. He had seen the fear in Bard’s eyes, and recognized it.

Of course, Thranduil did not believe him at first. It had taken a long time to convince him—in the end, he’d had to see it for himself. Bard sneezing a ball of flame onto Thranduil’s important documents had helped in that regard, as well.

“It only started after Smaug died,” Bard had said tiredly.

“After you killed him,” Thranduil corrected. “That must be important.” Bard had only shot him a weary, rueful look. Utterly uninterested in glory, that one. “Did you get any of Smaug’s blood on you?” Thranduil asked.

Bard shrugged. “Maybe. I was more concerned with the fact that a tower was currently falling down on top of me and my son.”

“Excellent,” Thranduil said crisply. “That gives us yet another utterly useless lead.”

In the end, they could think of nothing. They had tried magical cures, delving into old records not seen by living eyes in centuries; there was an old Dwarven tale of a king who loved his gold so much that he became a massive worm that devoured his entire hoard, but the only cure it proposed for such a case was a sword from the jaw to the belly. Both of them were less than eager to attempt that.

In the end, they’d merely coped with the fallout. Which was what Thranduil was doing now as he rode out to collect a certain man whose shape had gotten itself confused.

The creature landed in the highest branches of a tall and stately pine. It was a sight to see, all folding wings and serpentine motions followed shortly by a much less graceful flailing of pinker, softer limbs. As it turned out, it was much easier to land in the lofty tree as a dragon than it was to clamber down as a human. Well, getting down was the easy part. Gravity was all too willing to lend its assistance there.

After an hour of shouting instructions from the ground Thranduil had talked Bard down into the lower branches. “So what will it be this time?” Thranduil asked, as they both struggled to extract Bard from a thorny vine that cleaved to him like a particularly violent lover. “I’m thinking I was in sudden need of advice on a new shipment of bowstrings.”

“Perfectly believable,” Bard grunted. With a particularly enthusiastic tug he managed to go tumbling the rest of the way to the ground, minus a few small scraps of flesh that the vine hadn’t been willing to part with.

“You could at least tell your children,” Thranduil said in a voice that was carefully reasonable.

“My children don’t need to hear about my embarrassing medical problems,” Bard replied from his place lying prone on the grass.

“There are different kinds of embarrassments,” Thranduil said offhandedly, offering Bard the familiar cloak to cover up the bits of himself currently being shielded by a strategically placed pine branch.

“You’re telling me,” Bard said dryly, accepting the clothing.

“I mean that if you don’t tell them the truth, they’re bound to think something else,” Thranduil continued. “Like I mentioned last time.”

“Ah, right. That we’re seeing each other. Well, they’re not wrong.” Thranduil stared at him with a feeling not unlike having his innards scooped out by a clammy hand before Bard noticed his look. “I mean, we are seeing each other,” he said quickly. “As in, literally. I see you, you see me. You know.” He gestured at his eyes vaguely with the kind of smile usually worn by someone selling incredibly rare and recently discovered jewelry at suspiciously low prices.

“Oh yes. Good one. Ahaha.” Thranduil laughed in such a way that the syllables seemed to spell themselves out in the air. 

“Anyways, it’s a real tragedy,” Bard continued, as his brain urged him to move past the subject before his mind could sink its teeth in. “What with that meeting with Dain tomorrow morning. I suppose I’ll be in no state to attend it now. And to think of all the paperwork I’ll be missing out on… the minor details of the treaties that won’t be debated for hours, and hours…” Bard’s face took on a pallor normally observed in certain kinds of cave fish.

“Indeed. We’d best get you back to my kingdom as quickly as possible, for a hot bath, some food, and rest,” Thranduil said. “Wouldn’t want to risk worsening your condition, of course.”

“No, of course. We couldn’t risk it. It’ll be a real shame, though. Honestly, the thought of taking a nice, hot bath when I could be—” Bard paused, and then choked the rest of the sentence out like a piece of gristle propelled from a throat, “—attending to politics. This transformation is truly a curse.”

“I don’t know how you manage it. I’ll be sure to provide extra chocolate covered strawberries to console you.”

“I suppose I could suffer through them.”

 

-

 

_To the Illustriously Absent King of Dale,_

_I hope you are enjoying your stay in the Woodland Realm. I understand you must be, or else you wouldn’t insist on making emergency last-minute trips there on the eve of every meeting. Rumors of the exact nature of what you are so frequently imposing on or into your host abound in Erebor and Dale alike, but I am not crass enough to give them credit. I know well that Thranduil is much too tightly wound to fit anything else up his arse._

_Of course, in the case that they are true, I offer both my heartfelt condolences and congratulations. Condolences because of who you have chosen as a mate; congratulations because your inevitable death is bound to do Thranduil great emotional harm. In that spirit, I have also sent along a fine Gelmondirink, customary as a wedding gift among my people. It is meant to ensure the bountiful production of children, but in lieu of that possibility perhaps it might help you impregnate your lover with a better personality._

_Furthermore, if you miss many more meetings in favor of a pair of shapely ears, Erebor will be forced to take political action._

_Well wishes and consolations,_

_Dain_

 

-

 

Bard set the letter down and tried very hard not to look at the massive hunk of metal he had unwrapped shortly before reading it. He had no idea how it was supposed to be used, but anything with that many straps and pointy parts was enough to make him feel slightly ill.

He felt a hand settle on his shoulder from behind. “Dain is not normally in the habit of sending presents,” Thranduil commented.

Wordlessly, Bard handed him the letter. Thranduil glanced at the printing. “Unexpected. His handwriting isn’t at all like that of a scarcely literate raccoon.”

“That’s not in the spirit of diplomacy, Thranduil.”

“Of course it isn’t. That’s precisely why he never writes to me in the first place.” He finished skimming it. His face remained admirably mild. Afterwards, he glanced at the Gelmondirink one more time. “Well. That certainly explains a good deal about why dwarves have so few children.”

“Is this really the time for jokes, Thranduil?” Bard said. “I never thought this would go so far. If even _Dain_ thinks that we’re—you know—” He gestured uncomfortably at the malevolent hunk of Dwarven metal on the table.

Thranduil wisely avoided looking at it. “The solution is simple, of course,” he said, settling down the letter. “You need only tell him about your Little Problem and the rumors will clear right up.”

“Because I can see that conversation going perfectly,” Bard retorted. “‘Greetings Dain, King of Erebor, and sorry about the fact that I’ve been dodging our meetings for a month, you see I just can’t seem to stop _turning into a dragon_ —‘”

“Yes, that doesn’t quite roll off the tongue,” Thranduil said mildly. He turned back to the Gelmondirink. “I suppose it would be rude not to use it at least once.”

Bard was struck simultaneously by the rather nauseating metal image of the Gelmondirink at work and the imagine of Thranduil in a state of undress as the device would require, which sent his stomach flipping over for entirely different reasons. He swallowed drily. “I suggest you put it on display in your throne room,” he said. “It fits right in with the antlers and feeling of impending impalement.”

“And yet I would hate to given any Dwarven visitors the wrong impression.”

“It seems to me that’s exactly what you have always endeavored to do.” Bard stared at the letter with a sigh. “It’s not all bad, of course,” he mused aloud.

“What, the Gelmondirink? Are you speaking from experience.”

“No,” Bard grumbled, shooting him a look. “I mean the… Little Problem. On nights when it happens, it’s like everything I’ve ever worried about just gets left behind me on the guard. Sometimes I think that if my mind didn’t literally lift up and fly away from my problems, I would have gone mad within two weeks of becoming king.”

“I feel inclined to point out that there are probably better coping mechanisms than physically transforming into a shape incapable of feeling anxiety.”

“Like what?” Bard said dully.

Thranduil was quiet for a long time. He reached for a nearby tray. “Chocolate, perhaps.”

Bard snorted, but he ate another all the same.

 

-

 

As it turned out, you could only avoid meeting with the fellow leaders of your neighboring state for so long before they paid a neighborly visit. The knock that sounded on the door to Bard’s study was nearly enough to send the nails popping out of the wood. A few moments later Dain strode through it, with the kind of smile on his face that usually suggested bad things happening to the people he didn’t like.

“Ah, King Bard!” he exclaimed. “And I was beginning to think you were just a myth!”

“Hail, King Dain,” Bard replied with resignation, rising from behind his desk. “I apologize for my recurring absences.”

“Duty calls, eh?” Dain said with an exaggerated wink. “Did you receive my present?”

Bard swallowed drily. “Yes. It was… very thoughtful.” He didn’t doubt that a lot of thought had gone into it, at any rate. It smacked of premeditation.   

“Put it to good use, did you?”

“Dain, I think you might be laboring under a mistaken idea of what is going on between—”

“Whoever’s laboring under anything, lad, it certainly isn’t me,” Dain replied, leaning back to send the vertebrae in his back creaking. He was the kind of person who could crack every bone in his body as punctuation to any statement. There was something about the resounding pop of gristle that made him very hard to argue with.  

“My relationship with Thranduil isn’t exactly the fodder for political meetings,” Bard said, acutely aware of the fact that his brain and mouth were stubbornly refusing to put together the outright denial he asked of them. 

“Ah, but I beg to differ,” Dain said, his eyes taking on a shrewd gleam. “We’re all leaders here. If you two form an alliance that under any circumstances might encourage the use of a Gelmondirink, that’s relevant to Erebor’s interests. Are you two planning on merging your kingdoms then?”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous, we would have to keep our jurisdiction separate— _and that’s beside the point,_ because we are not romantically engaged.” Bard laid out this last sentence with a sense of relieved finality. Saying it hadn’t felt particularly good, but there it was. The truth. Useful but unpleasant, not unlike a Gelmondirink.

But unfortunately the truth was just about as attractive as culturally traditional Dwarven sex, because Dain’s expression did not change. “Denying it won’t help, lad,” he said. “I say we get everything out in the open right here and now. I’ve already drafted up the treaties that maintain Dale’s political neutrality between Erebor and the Greenwood, a few formalities about the rights of succession, disclosures on expected property merging…”

Bard stared at the sizable stack of documents Dain had let thud onto the desk between them. That special kind of survivalist logic popped into his brain to declare that with that much paperwork already written out, he and Thranduil were practically married already. Bard might not have known it until this moment, but with all those neat and rational lines of text patiently spelling out the truth for him, it was easy to believe that he and Thranduil really were being strong-armed into making their completely-unfictional affair public. More than anything Bard was amazed by how much he actually wanted to believe it. But once again the truth, like a Gelmondirink, was desperately hard to wiggle out of.

“Thranduil and I aren’t having an affair,” he said. “I’ve been missing meetings because ever since I killed Smaug I can’t stop transforming into a dragon.”

Dain stared at him blankly for a long time. Bard waited for the inevitable outburst of mirth. Now that he’d said it aloud he was fairly certain that once Dain laughed it off and pressed on with all the paperwork, Bard would go along with it and break the news to Thranduil that they were legally married later. But Dain didn’t laugh. And somehow, that was worse.

“Ever since you killed Smaug?” he said incredulously, yet seemingly not in disbelief. “Why lad, if that’s the case, why would you wait so long to get it taken care of?”

Bard stared at him blankly. “Taken care of?”

“Aye, taken care of! You can’t let this thing get out of hand!”

“Are you saying you don’t find the idea that I’ve been physically turning into a dragon against my will at all surprising?”

“It’s a fairly common problem for dwarves,” Dain replied with a wave of his hand. “There’s a simple cure for it. I can write down the recipe, here.” He grabbed one of the marriage documents and began writing neatly on the back. Bard watched him with the mild sense of dread that accompanies the suspicion that he had fallen asleep at his desk, or been slipped some kind of hallucinogen.

Dain finished writing and pushed the paper his way with a sympathetic smile. “There you go, lad, and see you get this sorted out right away. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone,” he said kindly. “Sorry for the mix-up about you and the Elf. I should have known you would have better judgement than that! Tell him he can keep the Gelmondirink, will you?” Laughing and shaking his head to himself, Dain saw himself out of the room.

Bard stared blankly down at the cure Dain had prescribed for him. It looked fairly simple. Bard could have it made up in less than a week. No more unintended flights over the mountain, no more waking up naked in exciting new places, and no more unexpected trips to the Woodland Realm. Bard stared at the paper and tried to summon up relief. All that came to mind was the memory of the hot springs in Thranduil’s caves. The dragon thing hadn’t been all bad, really. It had certainly provided an adequately serious excuse…

Bard’s eyes turned to the stack of marriage documents still sitting on his desk with all the heft and subtlety of a tombstone. As he picked them up and realized what he had to do, his heart began to pound in a very familiar way. It beat like wings. Bard turned to the window.

 

-

 

Bard stumbled into Thranduil’s chambers, a sheaf of papers in his arms and a hastily-acquired cloak flapping about his legs. The elf by the gates who had given it to him had done so very quickly and without hesitation. He had even stressed that he didn’t want it back.

“Thranduil,” he said, slamming the papers down on the table before striding up to the Elf. “Dain offered me a cure,” he said.

Thranduil stared at him with dawning comprehension. “A cure? So you can stop…?” He waved his hands in a gesture vaguely resembling the flight of a drunk bat.

Bard nodded. “I could be cured within a week.”

Thranduil let the implications of that sink in. No more mystery disappearances and long treks through the wilderness, for one. But of course, those wilderness journeys had their own sort of charm to them, especially knowing who they led to. And of course, collecting the man stark-naked from various scenic and secluded nature locales had its upsides…

Thranduil cleared his throat. “Ah,” he said at last. “That’s good news, then?”

Bard shook his head. “Except that I’m not going to do it.” His eyes were bright as he began to pace. “Once I realized that there was a cure, I realized I couldn’t take it. If I did, I’d be in the exact same situation as I am in now—except without the one way I’ve found of coping with the stress of my position. I’d lose my mind in a week, Thranduil.”

“Are you suggesting you allow yourself to continue swapping shapes for the sake of forcing yourself on vacation?”

“As a king, I’m entitled to eccentricities. You’ve proven that much to me,” Bard said with a grin. “But the most important thing for this to work is that my condition remains a secret from anyone and everyone who might think to try and cure me. And for that, I’ll need your help.” Before Thranduil could question him further the man stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulders. “We’re going to have an affair,” he said earnestly.

Thranduil stared at him a long time. “Very well,” he said, and kissed him.

It happened so quickly that Bard could only stand there and process what was going on before it was all over. Thranduil pulled back, inspecting Bard’s stunned expression like a man might stare at a hole in a life-raft.

“Um,” Bard said. “That is, I meant to say—as a cover story. For the whole ‘frequent disappearance’ issue.”

“Ah,” Thranduil said. There was an emotion in his voice waiting to happen, but it was more the dull shadow before the imminent meteor strike.

“It seemed the most believable solution.”

“Yes,” Thranduil said.

“To simplify things.”

“Right.” Thranduil cleared his throat. Bard was still standing with his hands on Thranduil’s shoulders. Slowly, he let them fall. “So,” Thranduil continued as if nothing at all had happened, “we continue the pretense of having a fake affair, completely unfounded, to prevent the populace of Dale from finding out the truth that their leader turns into a massive fire-breathing lizard.”

Bard frowned. “We don’t know for certain that I can breathe fire.”

“Last time you sneezed you set the wall tapestries ablaze.”

“Fair enough.” Bard shuffled his feet awkwardly. “Are we going to discuss the fact that you kissed me less than a minute ago?”

Thranduil turned around and poured himself a healthy portion of wine from the ever-present carafe in his room. The longer he poured, the healthier it got. “Perhaps we should both just forget that it ever happened.”

Bard considered the idea. He also considered the fact that he could still feel the heat of Thranduil’s lips on his own, a sensation he had never dared to consider he might experience. “I don’t think I can do that,” he said at last. “Did you… _want_ to kiss me?”

Thranduil stared at him over the rim of his cup. “I seldom do anything I do not want to do.”

“Do you want to kiss me just now?”

The silence was filled with the sound of hastily swallowed wine. When Thranduil met his eyes again, his gaze was appropriately fortified. “Would you prefer a convenient lie or an uncomfortable truth?”

Once again Bard thought of the Gelmondirink. “The truth,” he decided, though perhaps against his better judgement.

Thranduil turned to face him head on. At once Bard remembered every moment that had passed between them, which was no small feat—there had been many. So many looks and touches and off-handed comments that had settled into the bottom of Bard’s heart like rich silt in a river. Bard wasn’t a man much for metaphors, but the banks were flooding now. And the thought, long lying in wait, was finally beginning to sprout: no matter what Thranduil’s answer, Bard had wanted to be kissed.

“Bard,” Thranduil began, “I did not want to kiss you just then. I have wanted to kiss you every day for years that feel longer than the millennia of my life.”

Bard waited a moment before opening his mouth just in case his heart came lurching out of it. “I think I’ve just thought of a way to make our cover-story much more authentic,” he said.

Thranduil set his wine down on the table beside him. “Care to tell me what you mean?”

“I’d rather demonstrate,” Bard replied. This time when he stepped forward and pressed their lips together there was no confusion of feeling or intent. As it turned out, Bard’s utter lack of clothes beneath the borrowed cloak was an advantage after all.

 

-

 

_To The Seemingly Afflicted King of Dale,_

_I notice that once again you have mysteriously missed our most recent meeting. Have you had difficulty with the cure I prescribed? Generations of afflicted dwarves can attest to its effectiveness, both in curing dragon-curse and improving bowel function for weeks to come. In case there was any doubt as to its method of application, I have included a detailed diagram._

_Good Luck,_

_Dain_

-

_To The Ever-Patient King of Erebor,_

_Thank you for your informative diagram. I found viewing it to be at least half as bracing as the methods it illustrated. In fact, after perusing it I feel a sudden desire for good health that I believe will last me for quite some time. I will certainly get around to curing myself with appropriate haste._

_In the meantime, I have included the paperwork you so kindly dropped off on your last visit, declaring the terms of my romantic partnership with King Thranduil. I appreciate how thorough you have been. I know that at our last meeting I had mentioned only a platonic bond, but after contemplating the Gelmondirink_ _you so thoughtfully gifted us, it seemed a shame to let it go to waste._

_Respectfully yours (and happily Thranduil’s),_

_King Bard of Dale_

**Author's Note:**

> To those who are interested, I posted [an alternate version of one of the sections here](http://curmudgeony.tumblr.com/post/135610029207/so-its-actually-been-ages-since-ive-written) from when I momentarily forgot I was writing lighthearted Christmas fic. Because what's more in the spirit of the season than Thranduil struggling with deep seated emotional trauma from his dragon-inflicted burns? :')


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